A young man has just graduated from college with his education degree, and he's now looking for a job as a high school teacher. He has a vision of helping students prepare for life after high school, but at the same time he has a lot of doubts. "The kids seemed so bored, so unresponsive," he says about his practice teaching this past year. "I wonder if my work will make any difference in their lives at all?"

A social worker has been at her job for a number of years. She began her work with high ideals of what she could accomplish to address some of the painful situations she saw around her. But in her small town alone, she soon found that there were far more needy people than she could serve. On top of that, she discovered that she would normally see people only once they had reached a cr…